Plate Tectonics

Plate: plates are the upper, solid, massive, irregular and brittle part of the earth
also called as lithosphere. The lithosphere not only includes crust but also the
cooler upper part of the mantle. Its thickness varies from 50 to 150 kms. Plate are
of two types; continental and oceanic plate. Plates are of various size ranging
from few hundred to thousands of kilometres. For example: Pacific and Antarctic
plate are the largest plate.
Tectonic: tectonics is a noun meaning the study of tectonic activity.
Tectonic activity: we all know that the earth’s crust is continuously experiencing
movements (both horizontal and vertical) resulting into the bending and breaking
of crustal rocks. This breaking and bending of crustal rocks of the entire
lithosphere is called as tectonic activity.
Plate tectonics: Thus plate tectonic simply means the study which deals with the
plate motion, the resultant landform arising out of the tectonic activity and the
forces responsible for the plate motion .
With respect to the plate tectonics the earth’s lithosphere is divided into
different blocks (plates) and they are drifting in various directions with respect to
one another.
• Tectonic plates: There are seven primary plates and many smaller ones. The seven
primary plates are the African Plate, Antarctic Plate, Eurasian Plate, Indo-
Australian Plate, North American Plate, Pacific Plate, and South American Plate.
• Important Minor Plates: Cocos Plate, Nazca Plate, Arabian Plate, Phillipine Plate,
Caroline Plate, Fuji Plate.
 Tectonic Plates
How fast are the plates moving?
Plates move 1-10 centimeters per year (≈ rate of fingernail growth).
 Effects of Plate Tectonics
• Landforms caused by plate tectonics:
 Rift valleys (divergent boundaries).
 Mountain ranges (continental-continental convergent
boundaries).
 Volcanoes (oceanic-continental convergent boundaries).
 Faults (transform boundaries)
 Development and Growth of Plate Tectonic Theory

• After World War-II rapid advancement were made in the study of relief, geology
and geo-physics of the ocean basin.
• The study revealed that three very important types of features present on the
ocean floor namely; ocean ridges, oceanic trenches and transform faults.
• Harry Hess of United states after detailed study concluded that the place where
the oceanic ridges are lying are the place of rising and diverging convective
currents and the trenches are associated with descending convective currents.
• This model of Hess was later became famous as “Sea Floor Spreading”.
• The term ‘plate’ was first used by JT Wilson (Canadian geophysicist) in 1965.
• In 1967 Dan McKenzie and Bob Parker put forwarded ‘a paving stone hypothesis’
where the oceanic crust was considered to be newly formed at the mid-oceanic
ridges and destroyed at the trenches.
• WJ Morgon in 1968 divided the earth’s surface into 20 plates.
• Le Pichon in 1968 again divided the earth’s surface into six major plates.
• Strahler and Strahler in 1984 produced a world map of lithospheric plates .
 Plate Boundaries or Margins
• There are three major kind of plate boundaries. The plate boundaries with
respect to plate tectonic is very important because all type of tectonic
activities such as earthquake, volcanic eruption, folding, faulting,
mountain building etc takes place along the plate boundaries.
 Spreading plate boundary (constructive plate margins): this type of
plate boundary is found where the plates are moving away or
diverging from one another in opposite direction. The lava fills the
gap between the plates and the new oceanic crust is continuously
formed by accretion. (mid oceanic ridge in Atlantic ocean)
 Converging plate boundary (destructive plate boundary): such
margins occur when two plate moves towards each other, collision
takes place then Subduction comes in process and lithosphere is
being consumed, trenches are formed. (The Peru-Chile deep trench
along the west coast of south America is produced by a Subduction
zone at the meeting of Nazca plate and S-American plate).
Converging plate boundary are of three types. O-O, O-C and C-C.
 Transform boundary (conservative plate margins): these plate boundaries
are found where two adjacent plates slip horizontally past one another
along a transform fault. In this case the lithosphere is not destroyed. The
San Andreas Fault in California is the best example located on the western
coastal part of N-America. The pacific plate is on the west side and N-
American plate is on the east side.

• Rates of Plate Movement: the rate of plate movement

vary considerably.
 The East Pacific Rise in the South Pacific Ocean has the fastest rate of
about 15 cms/year. (the East Pacific Rise is a mid-oceanic ridge, a
divergent plate boundary on the floor of pacific ocean). It separates the
pacific plate to the west from (north to south) N-American Plate, the
Cocos Plate, the Nazca Plate and the Antarctic Plate.
 The Arctic Ridge in Arctic Ocean has the lowest rate i.e. less than 2.5
cms/year.
 Three Basic Types of Plate Boundaries

Divergent Using hands to show relative motion

Transform
Convergent

USGS Graphics
 Three Basic Types of Plate Boundaries

Divergent
East Pacific
Rise

Nazca Plate

Transform
Convergent

USGS Graphics
 Plate tectonics
Plates are driven by thermal convection current
Gravity provides additional force to move plates.

?
? ?

Convection is like a boiling pot. Heated soup rises to the surface, spreads and begins to
cool, and then sinks back to the bottom of the pot where it is reheated and rises again.
Divergent Boundaries
 Transform Boundaries
Places where plates slide past each other are called transform
boundaries. The most famous transform boundary in the world is the
San Andreas fault.
What happens next at Transform Boundaries?

• May cause Earthquakes

when the rock snaps
from the pressure.
• A famous fault at a
Transform Boundary is
the San Andreas Fault
in California.
San Andreas Fault, CA
 What are the tectonic plates?

Lithospheric plate
• The ~100-km-thick surface of the Earth;
• Contains crust and part of the upper mantle;
• It is rigid and brittle;
• Fractures to produce earthquakes.
Subduction
As new ocean floor is
created by sea-floor
spreading at the mid-
oceanic ridges it is
consumed at the
subduction zones
where the lithosphere
sinks under the
asthenosphere.
 What is the Theory of Plate Tectonics?
The theory that pieces of Earth’s lithosphere are in
constant motion, driven by convection currents in the
mantle.

• Plates move
slowly in
different
directions
 Cause different
geologic events
(like
earthquake,
volcano, etc.)
Convergent Boundaries
• Oceanic-Continental Convergence
• Continent-Continent Convergence
• Oceanic-Oceanic Convergence
 Oceanic-Continental Convergence
• When the leading edge of an
oceanic crust collides with
continental crust.
• Oceanic crust is denser – it is
subducted, or forced under
the less dense continental
crust.
• A deep oceanic trench forms
along a subduction zone.
Continent-Continent Convergence

• When two leading edges of continental crust collide.

• Neither crust is conducted – they have the same
density.
• Colliding edges are crumpled and uplifted, producing
mountains.
• This processes is called as ‘telescoping’.
There are 3 types of Convergent
Boundaries…
What else happens at Convergent Boundaries?

VOLCANOES
occur at
subduction
zones
Andes Mountains, South America
• Ocean plate colliding with another ocean plate

• The less dense plate slides under the more dense

plate creating a subduction zone called a TRENCH
• A continental plate colliding with another
continental plate
• May form Mountain Ranges.
These are Folded Mountains, like the Himalayas or
the Rockies.
Convergent Boundaries

• Places
where
plates crash
(or crunch)
together or
subduct
(one sinks
under)
 Mechanism of Thermal Convective Current

• Convection: convection is a process of transfer of heat due to bulk

movement of molecules with in fluids such as gases and liquid, including
molten rock.
• Geoscientist believe that the main factor for the motion of lithospheric
plates is the thermal convective currents that occurs in the mantle.
• Thermal convective currents are caused by unequal heating of mantle
rocks which lead to differences in rock density. The rocks at higher
temperature becomes lighter and rises upward and those at lower
temperature becomes heavier and sink. Thus a cycle of slow rising and
sinking rocks is set in motion and convection currents are caused.
• Geologist do not yet have full understanding of how this rise of heated
rock causes plate to move.
• But one hypothesis states that as the rising mantle lifts the lithospheric
plate to a higher elevation, the lithospheric plate tends to move
horizontally away from the spreading axis under the influence of gravity.
 What makes the plates move?

Convection Currents in the mantle move the plates as the core heats the slowly-
flowing asthenosphere (the elastic/plastic-like part of the mantle).
• This figure shows a calculation for thermal convection in the Earth’s
mantle. Colors closer to red are hot areas and colors closer to blue are
cold areas. A hot, less dense lower boundary layer sends plumes of hot
material upwards, and likewise, cold material from the top moves
downwards.